via sda:
This is aardvarking unbelievable.
The online webpage of Toronto newspaper the Star - and now those of the Edmonton Journal, the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, and other newspapers across the country -- is running a free 4-minute promo-piece/campaign ad for Justin Trudeau that auto-plays when you click on the link to what appears to be a newspaper article.
The blatant campaign ad - because that's what it is - is titled "Justin Trudeau's intimate conversation with Susan Delacourt". It's a curious title, because Delacourt is not seen or heard once in the entire four minute promo piece, which has on-screen chapter headings, brief moments showing Trudeau reading from his own memoir, and a video-scrapbook of lovingly presented images, processed with the Ken Burns effect, set to Trudeau's practiced, pandering voiceover.
This raises some serious questions.
How much did the Star pay for the production of this very professional looking, thinly-veiled campaign ad masquerading as an adjunct to an article about Trudeau's memoir? Does the Star have its own paid highly professional video/film production team on standby capable of making such a polished piece, or did they pay an outside production company to make it?
One would have to assume for the unknowing moment that the Liberal Party didn't produce or pay for it, or for any part of it, and that the Star didn't use or consult with even one single member of Trudeau's team to help write or craft or produce the video. But the Star broadcast it on the internet for free, with no trace of any reportage, or any commentary other than Trudeau's, under the guise of a "News / Insight" article. In doing so, is the Star acting as a journalistic organization, or as a member of Trudeau's election team?
If news organizations broadcast over the internet a fawning, hagiographic puff-piece-slash-campaign ad, with a cloying, saccharine, daytime TV- music soundtrack, what does it say about the impartiality and quality of the rest of their "news" reporting?
Welcome to the Media Party Consortium's current modus operandi: Networks collude behind-the-scenes to try to keep paid Conservative ads off the airwaves if the ads use even one second of footage of Justin Trudeau. Almost simultaneously, scores of pundits, many of them from the print divisions of those same broadcast organizations, decry and vilify Conservative attempts to solidify long-standing legal precedents of fair usage of such footage. Now, a newspaper broadcasts over the internet, and almost certainly produces and pays for, a clip that gives every appearance of being an extended Justin Trudeau ad, and other major newspapers across the country follow suit by broadcasting on their websites the same four-minute video.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Yes, Virginia, there <em>is</em> a Media Party - Small Dead Animals
This is aardvarking unbelievable.
The online webpage of Toronto newspaper the Star - and now those of the Edmonton Journal, the Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, and other newspapers across the country -- is running a free 4-minute promo-piece/campaign ad for Justin Trudeau that auto-plays when you click on the link to what appears to be a newspaper article.
The blatant campaign ad - because that's what it is - is titled "Justin Trudeau's intimate conversation with Susan Delacourt". It's a curious title, because Delacourt is not seen or heard once in the entire four minute promo piece, which has on-screen chapter headings, brief moments showing Trudeau reading from his own memoir, and a video-scrapbook of lovingly presented images, processed with the Ken Burns effect, set to Trudeau's practiced, pandering voiceover.
This raises some serious questions.
How much did the Star pay for the production of this very professional looking, thinly-veiled campaign ad masquerading as an adjunct to an article about Trudeau's memoir? Does the Star have its own paid highly professional video/film production team on standby capable of making such a polished piece, or did they pay an outside production company to make it?
One would have to assume for the unknowing moment that the Liberal Party didn't produce or pay for it, or for any part of it, and that the Star didn't use or consult with even one single member of Trudeau's team to help write or craft or produce the video. But the Star broadcast it on the internet for free, with no trace of any reportage, or any commentary other than Trudeau's, under the guise of a "News / Insight" article. In doing so, is the Star acting as a journalistic organization, or as a member of Trudeau's election team?
If news organizations broadcast over the internet a fawning, hagiographic puff-piece-slash-campaign ad, with a cloying, saccharine, daytime TV- music soundtrack, what does it say about the impartiality and quality of the rest of their "news" reporting?
Welcome to the Media Party Consortium's current modus operandi: Networks collude behind-the-scenes to try to keep paid Conservative ads off the airwaves if the ads use even one second of footage of Justin Trudeau. Almost simultaneously, scores of pundits, many of them from the print divisions of those same broadcast organizations, decry and vilify Conservative attempts to solidify long-standing legal precedents of fair usage of such footage. Now, a newspaper broadcasts over the internet, and almost certainly produces and pays for, a clip that gives every appearance of being an extended Justin Trudeau ad, and other major newspapers across the country follow suit by broadcasting on their websites the same four-minute video.
Anyone see a pattern here?
Yes, Virginia, there <em>is</em> a Media Party - Small Dead Animals
John O'Sullivan @JohnOSullivanNR 